On December 6 of this year, 2010, Glasgow-based artist Susan Philipsz won the Turner Prize for her work “Lowlands.”

It was the first time ever that a work of sound — a sound installation, or piece of sound art — had won the award.

The next day, art critic Richard Dorment of the Telegraph wrote, “I loathe the kind of think-me sensitive tuneless stuff Ms Philipsz sings.” He wrote a lot more, mauling an adventurous and long-running series on BBC Radio 3 called Late Night Junction, and dispensing with folk music as a whole. (Philipsz’s “Lowlands” involves several overlapping recordings of her singing the 16th-century lament from which the piece takes its name.)

Dorment apparently feels obliged to question the status of Philipsz’s “Lowlands” as a work of art. That’s fair, even if fretting over what is and is not art is a time-consuming parlor game that keeps people busy when they might be looking for the art in things. It’s equally fair to say that what Dorment wrote is not art criticism; it’s a rant, a bullying and uninformed one that is more an expression of the author’s personal taste than an investigation of the subject at hand.

Of Philipsz’s win, Dorment wrote dismissively, “Cue a long low collective sigh from art lovers across the country.”

We took that cue seriously, as lovers of art across the world, and admirers of Philipsz’s work.

And in taking it seriously, we took it literally. This is a compilation of a dozen recordings by musicians incensed by Dorment’s assault.

Each recording on this compilation was recorded for this project, and uses the human sigh as its source material. That is Lowlands: A Sigh Collective. The words here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of the participants. Their response is in their music, in their sound.

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Download: MP3. Robert M Thomas is a composer & producer from London who has worked on advertising, radio & games prior to becoming CCO at RjDj and producing interactive remixes of AIR, Carl Craig, Little Boots, Bookashade and the Inception score by Hans Zimmer.

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Download: MP3. Stephen Vitiello (Richmond, Virginia, United States) is an electronic musician and media artist. His sound installations have been presented internationally. CDs have been published on such labels as 12k, Sub Rosa and New Albion.

Track 4. (Duration: 02:55) "Sigh Me a River" by Kate Carr

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Download: MP3. Kate Carr is a musician and sound artist based in Sydney, Australia.

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Download: MP3. Stephan Richter was born in East Germany 31 years ago, and has been interested in sound and image: "With my music I try to explore the ever-changing relations between those two fields, trying to position them through the application of narrative strategies into a spatial experience. I live in Hamburg."

Track 6. (Duration: 01:48) "a very long slow sigh" by Subscape Annex

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Download: MP3. Subspace Annex is Steve Burnett (Raleigh, North Carolina), who makes ambient improvisational looping music with theremin, Chapman Stick, effects and constructed objects. When not performing, he is a technical writer and author.

Track 7. (Duration: 01:30) "sighfunk" by all n4tural

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Download: MP3. Mark Rushton is a sound and visual artist living in Iowa City, Iowa. Rushton also helps produce the monthly fiction audio magazine Boundoff.com. Download his music for free at markrushton.com.

Track 10. (Duration 01:21) "Ten Sighs for Philipsz" by C. Reider

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Download: MP3. C. Reider is a composer of electronic music, he runs the Vuzh Music label. He lives in Northern Colorado, in the United States.

Track 11. (Duration 03:16) "Variations for a Sigh and a Sigh" by He Can Jog

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Download: MP3. He Can Jog is computer musician Erik Schoster from Milwaukee Wisconsin.

Track 12. (Duration 02:14) "Mystified Sighs" by Mystified

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4 Comments

Hello Marc,
Now I’m enjoying to listen to the sighs.
For me even The Guardian’s supportive article was disappointing because it couldn’t appreciate her work itself without connecting it with some kind of political correctness, namely the ongoing students’ protest (I’m for the protest, though).
Why do the mainstream media often fuss about, or put unnecessary justification for artworks that cannot be touched or seen? I’ve found this tendency in some NYT’s articles…

Your music is pretty interesting – so far I heard #7 sighfunk (my friend’s) and a couple others. Sighfunk for me made a strong statement about how much meaning can be stored in simple and short human noises – very relevant for AI (think “Robot Sound Designer” on yer biz card). I saw immediately the value of studying such sounds, even a little bit the possibility of putting such music out in public at an avant-garde sculpture, or a shopping mall, or even a ringtone. How do such sounds get assigned such meaning, meaning stored in the genes and the memes? Reminds me of the way the astonishing system of hurtling narrowly past cars traveling in the opposite direction at 10 times the speed than they said in the 19th century man was not meant to travel faster, separated by some painted yellow lines – and missing. The crowd “sigh” was also surprising, and pleasant the first time, not as much the 2nd and 3rd times… The whole thing was very sharawadji.

ps. I came across an idea that Dorment’s was a kind of populist anti-intellectual pause to satisfy some readers. So he didn’t say anything constructive. He just spoke to art market lovers and some envy people. I would rather miss Michael Fried, who attacked Minimalists in the 60s, but his analysis was worth discussing about…

[…] of Marc’s musical challenges that I participated in was a compilation of tracks using only recorded sighs. There was a complex back story about a music critic he disagreed with. I was too late with my […]

[…] Megan McCardle. Anander Mol, Anander Veig was a holiday remix album commissioned by Tabletmag.com. Lowlands: A Sigh Collective was a response to criticism of artist Susan Philipsz winning the Turner prize in 2010. And then […]

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Current Activities

• May 13, 2015: Last spring-semester class meeting of the 15-week course that I teach on the role of sound in the media landscape at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I'll next teach it in spring 2016.
• December 13, 2015: The 19th anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• Ongoing: The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: soundcloud.com.
• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury, is now in its second printing. It can be purchased at amazon.com, among other places.